Remembering my trip to Berbera in 2016. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I don’t know what happened to all the fish we used for the photoshoot. No one really said, but I don’t think they were something the fishermen could technically sell at market. Back in the SUV, I checked and double checked the camera to make sure I actually recorded the footage, the goal of my 8,500 mile trip. 

Now the day softened into late afternoon. The heat became less oppressive.

“What would you like to do next J-P?” asked Amit, who was putting his phone away after an excited call with A– in Hargeisa.

There was nothing left for us to do except drive back to the Mansoor, try to find a working air conditioner, drink some fruit cocktails, and eat more fish. Mo’ drove us back to the hotel, passing through town. The call to prayer echoed in the streets and Berbera’s residents roused themselves from their midday slumber to pray, converse, trade, chew khat, and drink tea. Kerosene waifed in through the open windows of our SUV.

At the colorful signs of the fish shops we turned left at a fork in the road and once again rumbled through the desert. Women and children, carrying firewood bundled over their heads to their domed huts in the distance, stepped out of our way and turned from the clouds of dust created by our SUV. Eventually we arrived at the gate of the hotel. Our guards pulled up to Mo’s window to say good night and proceeded ahead to the barracks up the road.

I removed all the camera and computer equipment from my bags once more for the metal detector before loading it back in the SUV. Then I collected them again on the other side of security where I unloaded the bags and deposited them in my room; The air conditioner had been on non-stop all day and my lodgings felt like an ice-box. I started the tiring tasks of charging the batteries and backing up the footage. Again, I checked to make sure all the files were there. On another trip to Somaliland, I recorded some amazing video of a dust storm and tornado in Burao but when I checked the hard drive when I returned back to the United States, it had vanished. I did not want that to happen again.